The continued hardware slide is an Xbox problem, Spencer has repeatedly said as much. Revenue is at an all time high but we have no idea what they're spending to bring in that revenue. People thought Starfield would stem the bleeding with their hardware sales and it doesn't seem to have done that, but has done well enough on PC that their overall numbers still appear to be solid. Things could be worse but they could be a lot better.
Spending billions on new studios probably helped quite a lot there.
Probably depends on what one means with Game Pass on PS5. I don't see why Sony would block a Game Pass version which only includes Microsoft published games, providing those games are of course also available for sale through the PlayStation Store on their own. Game Pass which includes 3rd party content? Yeah, the only way that ever happens is if the law forces Sony to allow it.
Xbox continues to beat people over the head with the fact that you don't need an Xbox to play their games so I'm not sure why people expect anything different. People will disagree but I think it's a dumb way to sell Xbox when the people who buy the console are the most invested and willing to spend money
These numbers include Bethesda. They will eventually include ABK. Not really important to only look at net/total revenu. It is more about the expectations and growth %.
That's only half the problem, the other half is the marketing, which pales dramatically compared to their competition. Much of their marketing feels like it's aimed at their existing customer base. It's weak. Let's see if they can step up their marketing as they step up their release schedule.
Doesn't help games randomly skipping the platform, either. Why bother with an Xbox port if the hardware isn't moving?
I guess so. I am a bit confused about their strategy. They like to yell from on high that you don't need an Xbox console to engage with their ecosystem and yet they made Redfall, Starfield and future Bethesda games Xbox/PC exclusives to get people to buy their hardware presumably?
They are.
Of course the HW peaks and software peaks are correlated. It's the holiday season.
With Live Gold being renamed to GP Core I thought that would have announced a new number with this report as it'd be impressive to say there are 50M+ subscribers but sounds like they've moved away from announcing numbers completely. Guess all we'll get is growth or expansions into new territories.
I think this is what people are missing. Of course Microsoft would like to sell more consoles that would be more money. But the NEED is what's different in that equation for MS. If they're in third place making money I'm sure they can tolerate that. 3rd place for Nintendo or Sony only selling games on their machines is much uglier. I'm the end Xbox not doing numbers in hardware is always has posters with the "concern" soon but "disastrous concern" is probably not warranted.
I doubt any of their announced games will be able to match any effect Starfield could've had.
I suppose. But they could have Starfield and other games on PlayStation for $70 and pick up sales from people who are entrenched in the PS ecosystem while simultaneously going "Hey....wouldn't you like to play Starfield and much more for only $17 a month?" to entice the folks that might be willing to pick up a second console.
They didnt give any expectations on hw last q, think we assumed flat but as I alluded to in a previous comment, a negative forecast could have worked
The non-peak portions still follow HW as well, it's just not as pronounced...
Because they want people to buy their Xbox HW, but realize for their overall revenue to grow they need to expand past consoles alone (especially if those sales are declining)
They just had Starfield, one of the most hyped games of recent times. What upcoming Xbox game is even similar in hype levels? Might as well have to wait until TES6.
People on here are fans of console gaming. Microsoft's console is trending down against a console that did poorly.
They gave total growth expectations and C&S growth expectations, with that you could figure out hardware growth expectation, no?
Perks of being in a much bigger company is you don't have to answer for a whole lot.
You can go through every quarter going back to 2014 and get these numbers through calculating all the percentage changes for content and services and hardware. Years ago Microsoft would also share the dollar amount change for content and services so it was pretty easy to find those numbers. Since then it just making sure the percentage changes match for all three segments. At most, the range of hardware and C&S will be single digit millions, so nothing relevant.
That was not a rumor - Phil himself said it in his testimony to the FTC which leaked not long ago. Single digit millions. And yes, they think they will have a lot of growth in PCGP. I am of the opinion they sandbagged xcloud solely for the duration of the acquisition and will return investment in it, especially with Sony now making drastic improvements to it.
I posted this before but they gave 'wideish' ranges and we probably didn't account for the ratio of hw vs SW correctly.
Well it's a baffling strategy to buy a ton of studios, talk about software is so much more important to you, and then keep all that software on a console that is struggling hard even with a budget entry level option.
Yup, and ESO and probably a boatload of stuff that's in the pipeline.
